


bagel bags do not count as art

by Bundibird



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: And they adopt tony as their dad, Found Family, Gen, Harley and peter adopt each other as brothers, Harley is a little shit and he has the bagel bag to prove it, In that: Harley has instagram and he uses it, Irondad, Peter and Harley friendship, Social Media AU, Sort Of, aka: Tony gets adopted by a pair of science children, harley keener: agent of chaos, harley moves to new york, ironfam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23695612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bundibird/pseuds/Bundibird
Summary: “So there’s this school,” is what starts it all.[Or: Harley moves to New York, blitzes a high school entrance exam, gains a few thousand followers on instagram, and adopts a dad.]
Relationships: Harley Keener & Peter Parker, Harley Keener & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 116
Kudos: 2340
Collections: Lady Bibliophile's Collection of Incredible Fanfiction, Lovely Pieces, Marvel, Peter Parker Slaps Severely, TonystarkKids, fluffy marvel fics (primarily irondad)





	bagel bags do not count as art

**Author's Note:**

> Experimental style with this one; let me know what you think!

“So there’s this school,” is what starts it all.

“Curious opening,” Mandy Keener says, and the phone is held in place by her shoulder as she makes sandwiches that won’t be winning any prizes for presentation, but that will see her kids through another school lunch.

“It’s a feeder school to MIT,” Tony goes on, and he’s _not_ holding his phone in place with his shoulder (thank you, room-wide sound system), but his hands are just as busy as Mandy’s – only, his are buried in the guts of a Suit while hers are doling out lettuce and tomatoes with haphazard efficiency.

“Uh huuuh,” Mandy replies absently, reaching for the shredded chicken. It was left over from the diner; unsuitable for next-day-sale to customers, but perfectly fine for a homemade lunch.

“I’ll pay, obviously, and he can stay with me and Pep, and there’s an entrance exam, but I’ve seen it and he could do it in his sleep. Their next term starts in two weeks.”

Mandy pauses, shredded chicken in hand. 

“You want my kid to move to New York and start school there, and you’re giving me _two weeks’_ notice?”

“Less, actually. His entrance exam is set for Friday.”

There’s a long, pointed silence.

“Uh. Sorry,” he says.

“Today is Wednesday, Tony.”

“Uh. Yeah.”

It’s at that point that Harley skids into the Keener’s kitchen, shoes still untied and bag swinging wildly from one shoulder as he makes for the toaster.

Mandy sighs.

“Harley, you’re not going to school today,” she says, and Harley trips over his own feet as he tries to shove a piece of toast in his mouth at the same time as twisting on the spot.

“….What?” he asks around the toast.

“Did you even put butter on that?” Mandy asks, exasperated.

Harley swallows his mouthful of dry toast painfully.

“No time,” he says, hoarse. “What did you say?”

“You’re moving to New York,” Mandy says, instead of repeating herself. “Tony’s picking you up – when?” That last bit she directs at her phone, still held in place with her shoulder.

“I was thinking tomorrow morning?” Tony answers, and he still sounds sheepish about the late notice. Good.

“Tony’s picking you up tomorrow morning,” Mandy relays to Harley, who’s staring with an expression of startled confusion. “You’ve got an entrance exam on Friday. If you pass, you start school a week later.”

“I – what?” he says, blinking. “Did you – what?”

Mandy sighs again, shakes the bits of chicken off her fingers, and takes her phone from her shoulder.

“I’m putting you on speaker, Tony. I’m going to finish Sophie’s sandwich, and you’re gonna explain.”

“Hey kid,” Tony says from the phone, voice sounding tinny in the Keener’s small kitchen. “Wanna go to school in New York until graduation?”

Harley blinks again, startled.

“Uh,” he says, and then squints a little in suspicion. “Is it a regular school, or, like, a good one?”

“What do you take me for?” Tony asks, offended. “This is an artery school for all the big name colleges, kid.”

“MIT?” Harley asks, shrewd. Mandy gets a paper bag for Sophie’s sandwich. Harley’s, she just puts on a plate and puts in the fridge.

“No, just some local hack with a hand-painted sign over his garage that says ‘College,’ _yes,_ MIT, _obviously,”_ Tony replies, voice heavy with offended sarcasm.

“Huh,” Harley says, and then drops his backpack to the floor. “Ok then.”

“Great, good,” Tony says, and the man already sounds distracted, like now that he’s got Mandy and Harley’s ok he’s already turned his attention to something else. “Pack your shit, I’ll pick you up tomorrow, around 10.” 

“8 am too early for a man of your age, is it?” Harley needles, grinning.

“You know what? I was gonna take you and the fam for a late breakfast, but now I’m just gonna bring bagels, and there will only be two of them, and they’ll have the names _Mandy_ and _Sophie_ written on them in blueberry jam. Blueberry is still Soph’s favourite, right?”

“Yeah, it is,” Harley answers. “And psh. I’m moving to New York; I can get bagels whenever I want.”

“You and what money, Keener?” Tony asks.

“The allowance you’re gonna give me, _duh,”_ Harley replies, and Tony sighs like the weight of the world is on his shoulders.

“You’re a spoilt little shit, you know that?”

“He knows,” Mandy says, filling up Sophie’s water bottle. “You can give him the minimum wage for every hour he’s in school,” she adds, because otherwise her kid will be getting a thousand dollars a day spending money, or something equally absurd, and she needs to keep him grounded in reality at least a little bit.

“That’s just fifteen dollars an hour!” Tony yelps, outraged. “I haven’t paid anyone fifteen dollars an hour since 1988.”

From the other side of the kitchen, Harley is glaring at her with an expression of betrayal.

“It’s fifteen for every hour spent in school or at a school-organised activity, or it’s a flat rate of zero dollars,” she says, because honestly, seventy-five dollars per day is _more_ than enough for any fifteen-year-old to be getting in allowance.

“You drive an impossible bargain, Mrs K,” Tony sighs. “Alright, fine; I guess it will be good for the kid to get a taste of minimum wage reality before he starts inventing shit for my company and making six figures a month. Keep it real, you know?”

Sure, because earning money just for going to school is “keeping it real,” Mandy thinks but doesn’t say.

“I like raspberry jam on my bagels,” she says instead, as Soph comes careening into the kitchen in a manner almost identical to Harley – bag barely hanging onto her shoulder, laces untied. Only difference is that she’s still got her toothbrush in her mouth.

“One raspberry and one blueberry bagel each for the Keener ladies, and one empty paper bag with the words “don’t be a little shit” written on it for the most annoying member of your family, got it,” Tony says, and then hangs up.

“Was that Tony?” Sophie asks, around the toothpaste-foam in her mouth.

“Yeah, I’m moving to New York tomorrow,” Harley says, and dodges the startled spray of foam as Sophie splutters in surprise. “He’s picking me up tomorrow and I’m packing today.”

“But you’re driving your sister to school first,” Mandy says, ushering Sophie to the kitchen sink and sliding the kid’s sandwich and drink bottle into her bag as she goes by.

“Did he say he’s bringing bagels?” Sophie asks, after she’s spat her toothpaste froth out and rinsed it down the sink. “I want the blueberry one.”

“Duh,” Mandy and Harley say in tandem.

……………………

It occurs to Tony that afternoon that he should maybe give Peter the heads-up that he’s about to have company.

“Hey so there’s a kid I know,” he says, and Peter looks up from his coding.

“You know more than one kid?” he asks, fingers paused over the holo-keyboard.

“I know several, thank you very much,” Tony replies, haughty. “I know you, and your little buddy Fred, and Harley and Soph, and I _would_ say I know MJ, but I know she’d murder me if I referred to her as a kid, so therefore, I know four uncouth, bratty children, and I know one very refined and sophisticated young lady.”

Peter snorts.

“I’m gonna tell her you said that. Word for word.”

“She’ll probably be very pleased,” Tony replies, up to his elbows in the same suit he was working on earlier this morning. “Anyway. The kid. Harley. He’s moving to New York. Tomorrow. And he’s almost certainly gonna be going to your school. And I wanna tell him that you’re Spiderman, cause he’s gonna be living here and that’s a difficult secret to keep from someone even a fraction as brainy as this kid when you and your alter ego spend so much time here.”

“Uh,” Peter says, taking several moments to parse all of that. “Ok, uh, wow. That’s… a lot. How – how do you know this kid, again?”

“Mandarin incident,” Tony replies, scowling at a recalcitrant wire that keeps twisting the wrong way. “My house fell in the ocean, I woke up in Tennessee in a dead suit, and a little hillbilly helped me get back online.”

“And now he’s… moving here? To my school?” Peter asks, trying to catch up, and Tony nods distractedly, focussed on making the slippery little wire submit to his will.

“It occurred to me that I’d been remiss in my duties as the patron saint of genius children, leaving him to waste away in a sub-par country high school. And I happen to know of a semi-decent school in New York that places more focus on their sciences than they do on their sports teams. So I got him an exam slot.”

“And you… want to tell him I’m Spiderman,” Peter says, brow furrowed.

“Yeah,” Tony says. “I mean, it’s up to you, obviously, but he is gonna be living here and he _is_ very good at Connect The Dots, so if you’re not interning here as much as a regular intern would, or during the hours a regular intern would work, and meanwhile you’re spidermanning all over town during after-school hours, _plus_ he’s going to school with you… yeah. He’s gonna work it out. I give him a week after starting school with you, and that’s only because I’m factoring in some jetlag.”

Peter pulls a face.

“I don’t think you get jetlag when it’s only an hour’s difference in timezones.”

“Fine, three days then. I was trying to break it to you softly. What I’m saying is he’s gonna work it out, so why not cut to the chase and just tell him from the outset? He’s trustworthy. Won’t tell a soul, I promise.”

“I don’t know,” Peter says, reluctant. “I mean – I don’t even know him.”

“Well, no, but a) I know him, and b) you’ll know him by tomorrow afternoon.”

“How do you know he won’t tell?” Peter asks, and it’s clear that he just wants to say an outright _no don’t tell the strange country kid about my secret identity please_ but hasn’t quite mustered up the courage to say that straight to Tony’s face.

“How many kids do you know of who would meet Iron Man in their garage, help him save the President, and then _not_ tell anyone about that?”

“Uh… none,” Peter says, and Tony gestures triumphantly.

“See? Kid’s trustworthy. Me being in Tennessee wasn’t even an actual secret, after the fact, but he still kept it on the DL. Didn’t even tell his mom – which meant that she was _kinda_ surprised when I rocked up and wanted to kit out the garage with state of the art tech as a thank you. So an actually _important_ secret? Kid’ll share with exactly no one.”

Peter’s lips twist, and Tony knows what the kid wants to say before he works out how to verbalise it.

  
“Or we could try and keep it a secret, and time how long it takes him to work it out,” Tony offers, and then grins. “That would be fun, actually, let’s do that.”

“He might not work it out,” Peter says, sagging in relief that they’re not going to be outright telling his secret identity to a relative stranger. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

“Hm, no. He’s definitely gonna work it out,” Tony replies. “It’s just a question of how long it will take him. Fri? Put a thousand bucks down on it being less than three days from Harley starting school.”

Peter gapes.

“Mr Stark, I don’t _have_ a thousand bucks!”

“Who said the bet’s with you?” Tony asks. “This is with Rhodey.”

……………………

“I’m gonna frame this,” Harley says proudly, holding the paper bag that says _H &H Bagels_ on one side and _Don’t be a little shit_ on the other like it’s a precious gem. “It’ll be the first piece of art that I put up in my fancy new room.”

“You’re moving to a penthouse apartment in New York City, and you’re gonna put a bagel bag on your wall?” Tony asks, face twisted in disgust. “Disgraceful. Mandy, we’re cancelling this whole arrangement; he’s staying here after all. I can’t bring someone with such bad taste in art as this into my home, Pepper will kill me.”

“It’s too late,” Mandy replies, swallowing her bite of bagel. “I’ve already got plans to turn his room into a craft room. Soph and I are gonna paint the walls with glitter to make it as pretty as possible.”

“You think glitter is any kind of deterrent?” Harley asks. “I love glitter. Glitter is the best.”

“I don’t know – I think it’s kind of perfect,” Sophie pitches in, and she’s almost finished her blueberry bagel, how, _how_ did she do that so fast. “The art, I mean. It’ll be the first thing he sees every morning when he wakes up. It can be his daily mantra. Maybe it’ll sink in.”

“All it’s gonna do is inoculate me,” Harley disagrees. “I’ll be forever immune to people telling me I’m being a little shit.”

“Ok, so, no different to now, then,” Tony says, and Harley grins brightly and nods.

“Not that I want to hurry you out the door or anything,” Mandy says, holding her last bite of bagel between two delicate fingers. “But I really do have to be getting to work. I changed my shifts around, but I start in half an hour, and _Tony Stark wouldn’t leave my kitchen_ won’t really fly with my boss as an excuse for lateness.”

“Your boss is a prick,” Harley grumbles.

“My boss and the paychecks he gives me is what keeps bills paid around here, kiddo,” she replies, and then holds a stern finger up to cut off whatever Tony is opening his mouth to say. “Nope! Not a word. I’m down with sending my kid off to greener pastures, but I’m not accepting any charity for me. I’ve kept us comfortably afloat for nine years, and I’m gonna keep right on doing that. Especially now that my electricity bill is about to go down significantly.”

“Rude,” Harley says, and Mandy shrugs.

“I hear there’s a building in New York that runs off ARC reactor tech; maybe you can ask the owner if you can tap into their electricity supply,” she says, and pops the last bite of bagel into her mouth.

“I think we could probably work something out,” Tony says, dropping the matter of bills (he wasn’t going to do anything _too_ outrageously charitable. Just, like, buy their house and put it in her name so she didn’t have to pay rent anymore, or something).

“Great!” Mandy says, getting up and flapping a hand at Sophie to follow suit. “I’ll leave that in your hands, then. Soph, I hope you’re planning to wash those bits of blueberry off your face before you go to school.”

“I’m a trend-setter, mom,” Sophie says, imperious. “I’m the Regina George of Rose Hill High. If I say blueberry lipstick is where it’s at, then blueberry lipstick is where it’s _at.”_

“Well in that case, get you and your height-of-fashion lips into my car; you can write the late note while we drive and I’ll sign it once we get there.”

“I still think it’s bull that I have to stay here while Harley gets to go to school in New York,” she grumbles, but gets up from her chair without protest.

“Soph, this school specialises in _science,”_ Harley says, in the tone of someone who’s had this discussion five times already. “You don’t even _like_ science. Besides. You’re gonna get picked up for a tennis scholarship in a few years anyway, and then you’re gonna be Grand Slamming your way around the world, so it’s not like you don’t have anything to look forward to.”

Sophie sniffs like she knows Harley has a point but doesn’t want to concede it.

“Still,” she says. “This dumb town is gonna be boring as hell without you blowing things up every weekend.”

“I’ve only blown three things up, and two of those times, an explosion was what was _meant_ to happen _,”_ Harley protests as he gets to his feet, and Sophie grins.

“Like I said,” she says, darting in and giving him a quick hug around the middle. “It’s gonna be boring as hell.”

“We’ll be visiting for Thanksgiving _and_ Christmas, so you’ll just have to get your fix for explosive events then,” Mandy says, swinging her own bag over her shoulder and ushering all of them towards the door.

“Plus, it _literally_ takes, like, an hour to get here by jet, so if you’re ever missing me, I can be here in no time,” Harley adds, collecting his dufflebag and shoving his backpack unceremoniously at Tony, who takes a hold of it with a longsuffering expression. “And make sure you tell Connor that just cause I’m in another state doesn’t mean I’m not looking out for you. If I have to fly back here to re-arrange his atoms, I will, and I won’t be cheerful about it.”

“Connor used to bully me,” Sophie explains to a curious Tony. “Harley explained to him why it would be a good idea for him to stop doing that.”

Tony’s lips twist in an amused smirk.

“I’m sure it was a very mature and restrained discussion,” he says.

“I mean, I only electrocuted him a _little,_ so yeah, I’d say it was very restrained,” Harley replies with a shrug, and Tony barks a laugh.

“Got detention for it too, if I recall correctly,” Mandy says in a tone of irritation as she herds them out the door and shuts it firmly behind her. “Little shit was tormenting my kid for months, and the school does nothing, and Harley zaps him just a bit, once, and all of a sudden it’s _oh we don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour here._ Loada bullshit. Anyway. Try not to pick too many fights in your first six months, yeah?”

“You know I only pick fights with people who deserve it, Mom,” Harley complains, dutifully allowing her to draw him in for a hug and a kiss pressed into his tousled curls.

“Well maybe try to be a little more subtle about it than you usually are,” Mandy says, smoothing a hand over the kid’s hair in a futile attempt to tame the wild curls. “I’m giving your bed to Goodwill tomorrow and putting in a craft table instead, so there’s nowhere for you to come back to if you get expelled.”

Harley shrugs.

“I can sleep anywhere; I’d probably be able to make a craft table work in a pinch.”

“Yeah, well, make sure you don’t have to,” she says. “This is a damn good opportunity for you and if you screw it up I’ll hang you upside down from the chimney as a Christmas decoration.”

“You’ll have the prettiest house in the street,” Harley says, and she snorts and gives him a final kiss on the cheek before getting into her car. Sophie darts over too for a final hug, and even gives Tony one as well before she follows her mom into the car as Mandy winds the window down.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she says, and Harley gives her a sharp salute. “And you,” she directs at Tony, a stern expression on her face. “Look after my kid.”

“Yes ma’am,” Tony replies with a grin, and a deliberately-sloppy salute of his own.

“Also, thanks,” Mandy adds, and then she winds the window up and puts the car into reverse before Tony can reply.

“BYE!” Sophie hollers from her own open window, overly dramatic, as per her usual style. “I’LL NEVER FORGET YOU!”

“Prove it by sending me glitter-laden craft presents!” Harley yells back at her, and then the car is in the street and they’re driving away, and then it’s just Harley and Tony in the Keener’s driveway.

“Where’d you put the jet, by the way?” Harley asks, apparently noticing for the first time that it’s not in the street.

Tony grimaces.

“Your front yard was too small, so it’s in a nearby field,” he replies. “If there are cows surrounding my jet when we get back to it, Keener, then you’re in charge of dispersing them.”

“Is Iron Man afraid of cows?” Harley asks, delighted. “Is that what I’m hearing right now?”

“I’ve never met a live one,” Tony sniffs, disdainful. “They’re a lot larger than I thought they were, and they have horns, and I don’t trust them at all.”

……………………

Friday tells Harley where to find the blue-tac, and Harley sticks the bagel bag to his wall, _Don’t be a little shit_ side out.

“We’ll have to get you a frame for that,” Pepper says, as soon as she sees it.

“Am I the _only one_ in this house who knows what is and isn’t art?” Tony demands, and Pepper sends him a flat look.

“You have a pop art version of yourself in your lab, Tony. You have _no_ art sense.”

“Betrayed,” Tony moans. “I’m being _betrayed_ in my own _house.”_

……………………

Peter comes over that afternoon after school to meet “the new kid,” and they’ve only been talking for thirty seconds or so before they start speaking in a language Tony doesn’t understand.

“It’s called Vine, old man, and I don’t expect that you’d understand it,” Harley says at one point, and Peter nods in apologetic agreement, and then they’re back at it, and at this rate, Tony’s gonna need a cypher to understand what they’re saying.

It takes less than five minutes before they’re moving towards the labs, and it’s when they start talking about working on a joint project that Tony realises that introducing Harley’s budding tech genius to Peter’s budding bio-chem genius was perhaps not the best idea he's ever had.

“Fri,” Tony says, urgent, while the two boys chatter cheerfully and make their way down the hall, yammering enthusiastically about the various ways their respective specialities could intersect. “Friday, I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

……………………

“Hey – you’re good with Instagram, right?” Harley asks, halfway through his first breakfast in the Tower. His entrance exam is later this afternoon, and he doesn’t seem remotely bothered by it. Unsurprising. Kid’s gonna breeze through it.

“Good as in, do I know how to use it?” Tony asks, borderline offended, because he’s had an Instagram for ages (not that he uses it often; Pepper made him get it mostly as a PR thing, though she did despair over his choice of YouKnowWhoIAm as a handle instead of one that had his actual name in it), and he’s never met a program he hasn’t mastered, and some sub-par social media site with no way to order posts chronologically is hardly gonna get the better of him, thank you very much. He’s offended by the mere implication.

“No, I mean are you good with me posting shit on _my_ Instagram page. Can I be like _Hey interwebs, here’s a photo of Tony Stark picking his nose_ , or am I meant to be keeping this whole thing on the DL?”

“Firstly, I’ve never picked my nose in my _life_ and any photo that claims otherwise has been doctored. Secondly, yeah, do what you like. Unless it’s, I dunno – sharing blueprints or other sensitive information. Don’t do that.”

“Weirdly defensive about nose-picking for someone who doesn’t do it, but ok. And obviously I’m not gonna share classified information, who do you think I am, Romanov?”

“You’re not nearly dangerous enough to be Romanov,” Tony replies, taking a sip of his coffee, and then he blinks as a flash goes off in his direction.

“ _What… do you call… a genius… before he’s had… coffee?”_ Harley narrates as he types into his phone, presumably captioning the photo he’s just taken. Little shit. _“A grump. With @YouKnowWhoIAm, hashtag-coffeeaddict.”_

“How many followers do you even have?” Tony asks.

“Like, nine,” Harley replies with a shrug, putting his phone down and picking his cereal spoon back up, and then he grins. “What do you wanna bet I hit a thousand by this afternoon?”

……………………

An hour later, Harley takes a photo of Tony trying to pry the fire extinguisher out of DUM-e’s claw while U spins around in the background, excited by the commotion. 

(DUM-e merely _sees_ Harley, and he runs for the extinguisher, and Tony doesn’t even want to know when or why the bot developed this habit.)

_The children are being rowdy,_ is the caption this time. He tags Tony in it again, and it’s accompanied by the hashtags _ThereIsntEvenAFireThisTime_ and _TonyJustLetHimHaveHisToy._

……………………

By 10 am, there’s an article out titled _Who Is @HarleysGarage And What’s His Connection To Tony Stark?_

The article offers no answers, just wild speculation which mostly boils down to – after trawling through Harley’s Insta-history and sharing a bunch of his selfies – a strongly put suspicion that Harley is Tony’s secret child, which amuses Harley immensely.

Tony gets a text from Mandy, who’s obviously seen the article, and she says, _You know – if I wasn’t absolutely certain who his father is, I’d probably be blaming you for him too. He’s so like you it’s bizarre. And brush your hair once in while, you caveman. You’re gonna have a bad influence on my kid._

……………………

Harley takes a selfie in the backseat of the car with Tony as Happy starts driving them to the school for the Entrance Exam.

Tony’s expression in the photo is as exasperated as he feels, while Harley’s grin is bright and wide.

_Off to blow some minds. This school ain’t gonna know what’s hittem,_ reads the caption, along with the hashtags _EntranceExam_ and _WhatDoYouWannaBetItsACakeWalk_ plus, of course, the ever present _with @YouKnowWhoIAm._

……………………

The little shit’s follower count hits a thousand by 11 am, and hits the 2k mark less than half an hour later.

“Why does everyone care so much about a couple photos of me drinking coffee and arguing with DUM-e?” Tony demands, irritated.

“It’s not just the coffee, dude,” Harley says, balancing a pen on his fingertip while he waits to be let into the exam room. “It’s the adorable morning-hair and the ratty band teeshirt. They only ever see you in suits of one kind or another; this ‘Behind The Scenes Tony Stark’ shit is fascinating to them. Plus, DUM-e and U are adorable, so there’s that.”

And you know what? Tony can’t even argue with that last point.

……………………

During a five minute break between his classes, Peter detours into the office where Tony’s waiting while Harley’s doing his exam, and quietly asks if they can hold off on Harley meeting Spiderman for now, cause he wants to keep the two identities as separate as possible for as long as possible.

Tony shrugs and says “Whatever you want, kid,” but privately doesn’t think it’s going to do much to hold off the inevitable. Harley’s been distracted with the move and the exam so far, but it’s not gonna be long before he starts wanting to meet as many local superheroes as he can.

Tony’s suspicions are proven right that evening. Harley asks during dinner when he’s gonna meet New York’s newest and spideriest vigilante.

(He passed the exam, _obviously._ Flying colours, and Midtown High is very excited to add him to their collection of intelligent young adults. Harley celebrates by taking a selfie in front of the school and captioning it _Y’all don’t deserve this awesome, but you’re gonna get it anyway, cause im generous like that._ )

“No idea,” Tony answers absently, not even glancing up from his tablet. “He doesn’t work for me, I don’t know his schedule. I don’t even know my _own_ schedule.” 

“Right,” Harley says, and there’s something suspicious in his voice. “But you do know him,” he adds, and it’s not a question. “I know a Stark designed suit when I see one, so don’t try to deny it.”

“Yeah,” Tony says with a shrug, cause it’s not like there’s any point lying about that. Besides, the kid would see through it in a heartbeat if he even tried. “The guy was running around in trackpants and a hoodie, it was an affront. I couldn’t let that continue.”

“So you know who he is then,” Harley says, triumphant.

“Yep,” Tony says, popping the P. “And in answer to your next question: no.”

“I was only gonna ask you to introduce us!”

“Really,” Tony deadpans, looking up from his tablet with an unimpressed eyebrow raised high. “You weren’t gonna ask me to tell you who he is?”

“So are you gonna introduce us or not?” Harley asks, dodging the question, and Tony rolls his eyes and goes back to his coffee.

“I’m sure you’ll meet eventually,” he says, noncommittally, and Harley huffs in frustration.

“I’ll meet him,” he says, and it sounds more like a threat than anything else. “ _And_ I’ll find out who he is.”

Tony thinks about his bet with Rhodey and suppresses a smirk. He has no doubts that Harley will do exactly that. Only question is how long it will take.

“Sure thing, kid,” he says, deliberately not giving away any of his thoughts.

……………………

On the weekend between the entrance exam and Harley’s first day of school, there are four explosions, only one of which was a deliberate one, and all four of which include Peter, who prior to now, has never once been involved in any kind of explosion in Tony’s lab.

“You’re being a bad influence on my intern, Keener,” Tony snaps, once the smoke from the most recent explosion clears. “Cut it out. And _stop taking photos of me when I’m covered in soot.”_

“I’m not taking a photo,” Harley chirps, phone still held aloft. “I’m filming.”

Tony throws his hands up in defeat.

“Of course you are,” he snaps. “Are you _also_ gonna film the part where you and Pete clean this all up, or is that not thrilling enough for your legion of fans?”

“Ooh, hear that, guys?” Harley asks, flipping his phone around to film himself. “You’re a _legion.”_

“Did _you_ hear the part where you’re on cleaning duty?” Tony asks, and Harley flips the phone back around to take in the soot-covered lab, soot-covered Tony, and soot-covered Peter, who at least has the decency to look sheepish about the mess they’ve made.

“Yeah, yeah, keep your chill, dude, we’ll clean it up,” Harley says, waving his free hand dismissively. “But lemme just get a close up of what’s left of our experiment first.”

Tony tips his head back and sighs at the ceiling.

Then looks back down and around when he hears a sudden whooshing noise.

“Good boy, DUM-e,” he praises, giving up on Harley and choosing instead to turn his attention to his bot, who’s cheerfully putting the spotfire on Tony’s desk out with liberal application of a fire extinguisher. “See? _This_ is when we use extinguishers. When something’s actually _on_ _fire.”_

Harley posts the video, and he simply captions it with, _Oops._ He tags Tony in it, as per usual, and he also tags @PeetaParkour in it, who is stunned and alarmed when his own follower count skyrockets over the next hour, and then only continues to grow. 

(Tony’s not aware of it, but Pete also gets a sudden influx of messages from various school acquaintances, all of whom are disconcertingly friendly. Now that he’s featured in a video that takes place in Tony Stark’s lab, that also happens to feature Tony Stark himself, who casually refers to Peter both by his name and as ‘ _my intern_ ,’ certain persistent school rumours have now been proven thoroughly wrong, and the number of people wanting to be his friend suddenly skyrockets. He finds that he doesn’t like popularity at _all_. He elects to respond to none of the messages except those from Ned and MJ, and calls it a job done.)

_‘Oops?’_ Tony comments online when he sees the post, utilising his account for the first time in months. _You two little hellions nearly blow my lab right out of my building, and all you have to say for yourselves is ‘Oops’?_

_You say that like Harley hasn’t been blowing shit up since he learnt how to walk,_ is what Sophie replies a minute or so later.

_He says this as though he himself hasn’t blown up COUNTLESS things before,_ Harley replies.

_It’s my lab; I’m ALLOWED to blow shit up,_ is Tony’s response.

The video and the exchange is featured in at least twelve online articles by that afternoon. 

……………………

The day Harley starts at Midtown, he works out that Peter is Spiderman.

“Wow,” Tony says. “That was faster than even I predicted.”

“Dude,” Harley says to a stunned and slack-jawed Peter. “It’s _so obvious._ Also, Ned isn’t even a little bit subtle.”

“Fri, tell Rhodey he owes me a thousand bucks,” Tony says.

“Will do, Boss,” she replies.

“But – _how?”_ Peter asks, baffled. “You haven’t even _met_ Spiderman yet!”

“Which is suspicious in and of itself, but also – you were mixing your webfluid under your desk in Chem,” Harley replies, face creased in amusement. “And _also_ , Ned’s definition of a whisper leaves a lot to be desired. There’s only so many ways _Are you going patrolling tonight?_ can be interpreted when I’d _just_ seen you making webfluid.”

“Oh,” Peter says, and he sounds deflated.

“ _I’m good at keeping secrets_ ,” Tony – who’s been laughing since Harley said the bit about webfluid in class – recalls, chuckling freely. “Oh, kid. Remind me to keep you away from the press. They’ll have your social security number out of you in a heartbeat.”

Peter flushes a bright, embarrassed red.

“I’ve been making that at school for months, and no one’s noticed anything,” he protests. “How was I supposed to know Harley would figure it out so quick?”

“I _did_ try to warn you, if you recall,” Tony says, chuckles finally tapering off. “I said he’s good at Connect The Dots.”

“Plus, like – the kids at your school are obviously either inobservant or stupid, because bio-chem isn’t even my speciality, and I recognised the fluid in a heartbeat,” Harley says. “I’ve only ever seen it through footage of your fights and stuff, but I recognised it. Haven’t some of your school buddies been rescued by you? Like, in person? How do they not notice the similarities between webs that they saw up close and personal, and the weird shit you make in chem every week?”

“Well, I mean – they were kind of stressed out, when I was rescuing them. I don’t think any of them paid attention to the composition of my webs while I was pulling them out of the elevator. And no one really pays attention to me in school, so… I don’t think they’ve ever noticed me making it.”

Harley throws an unimpressed look at Tony.

“I thought you said this was a school of geniuses,” he says.

“I said it was the best school in the state _for_ young geniuses, not that everyone who attends there is one,” Tony replies. “Also – Pete, why the hell are you making your webfluid at school? You do realise I have a state of the art lab here, right? That you use quite frequently? Maybe stop with the under-the-desk sciencing that risks you outing yourself every week, and start using my lab instead?”

“I guess, I didn’t… want to impose?” Peter says, and then sees the expression on Tony’s face and hurries to explain further. “It’s just – it needs ingredients that you don’t usually keep here, and I didn’t want to ask you to buy them just for me, but the school has them just, like, as part of their regular supplies, and I mean I started making it there and I guess I just got in the habit , and – ”

Tony holds up a hand to stem the tide of words.

“Just tell me what it’s made of, and I’ll get the stuff,” he says, and Peter subsides sheepishly.

Harley, meanwhile, is observing Peter with a tilted head and a curious expression.

“He invented a brand new product that has a greater tensile strength than steel, and he did it under his desk in chem while the teacher wasn’t looking… but he _didn’t_ have the smarts to ask his local billionaire sponsor to buy some school grade chemicals so he could make the stuff in a more secure setting,” he muses aloud. “Amazing.”

“Shuddup,” Peter snorts, half-embarrassed and half-defensive.

“Boss, Rhodey is on the line for you,” Friday interjects, before the bickering can continue, and Tony grins.

“Honeybear!” he greets. “Guess who owes me a thousand bucks!”

“No way,” Rhodey’s voice says from the speakers, stern. “You said three days. He got it in less than one.”

“I said _less_ than three days, Platypus,” Tony grins, and Rhodey scoffs.

“I’m sorry to inform you of this, Colonel Rhodes,” Friday interrupts, before Rhodey can speak. “But: _Fri? Put a thousand bucks down on it being less than three days from Harley starting school.”_

“Thanks baby girl,” Tony says, grinning widely at the sound of his own recorded voice. “Rhodey – I accept cash or electronic transfer. No cheques. Cheques are so yesteryear.”

“Damn it, Keener, you couldn’t have held off on your announcement by _two and a half days?”_ Rhodey demands, annoyed.

“Excuse both of you, I’m a little busy being offended that you two are betting on my intelligence,” Harley says, and Tony flaps a dismissive hand at him.

“Be mad at Uncle Rhodey; he’s the one who said it would take you longer than three days. _I_ had faith in you.”

“ _Three days_ faith,” Harley replies, offended, and Tony flaps his hand as he rolls his eyes.

“I was trying to go easy on Peter,” he explains. “Kid was freaking out about the potential for a stranger to work out who he is; I was trying to break it to him gently.”

“Obviously I don’t mind _now_ ,” Peter says hurriedly, when Harley turns his raised eyebrows to him. “Much, at least. I didn’t actually know you then, but I do now. So it’s fine. Mostly.”

“Hmph,” Harley says, and somehow manages to aim it at Peter, Tony, _and_ Rhodey, who isn’t even in the room, and the kid turns on a heel and strolls pointedly away from them, walking over to where DUM-e and U are sitting impatiently on their charging stations.

“None of _you_ have betrayed me,” he says to them both, and Tony rolls an eye at the kid’s dramatics and goes back to work, gesturing for Peter to follow him.

Harley ends up taking a selfie of him and the bots, and captions it with _These two and their little sister are my only friends in this house of traitors._

_Ooh, drama in the House of Stark – save me from my dull af history homework and gimme the goss,_ Sophie replies, within a few moments of him sharing the photo.

_Quit procrastinating on insta and get your homework done, you KNOW what Reynolds is like about late submissions,_ Harley replies, and he’s leaning against U while DUM-e makes him a smoothie, in an attempt to soothe his apparent distress.

_Who cares about homework, Harley, spill the tea,_ is her instant response.

_Cant. State secrets,_ Harley writes back, and ok, maybe he’s enjoying this a little bit too much.

_Harley Jonathan Keener, don’t you make me hitchhike to that stupid tower and wring the answers out of you,_ she says a heartbeat later.

_See if there’s any of your precious blueberry jam here for you when you get to my ‘stupid tower’,_ comes the almost instant reply from Tony, and when Harley looks up, Tony’s got his phone in his hand.

_Tony, come on, you know I didn’t mean it, there’s no need to threaten my blueberries. Your tower is a monument to, like, science and whatever. Will YOU spill the goss?_ Sophie adds.

Harley hears the phone ping from across the room, and he watches as Tony spends half a second reading before the man starts to tap out a response.

_Cant,_ is the reply that comes up on Harley’s screen a moment later. _State secrets._

………………

“Tony, the Board is pestering me about your secret love child,” Pepper says when she gets home from work that night, and Harley snorts.

“You know what?” Peter says, giving Harley an assessing gaze. “I can see that.”

“They know full well that he’s not mine,” Tony tells Pepper with a vaguely perplexed frown. 

“We’ve told them that he’s not, but with all the speculation and Harley’s charming little Instagram account, there’s rumours flying all over the place, and you know that Boards get twitchy when rumours start flying. They want us to clarify the situation.”

Tony groans.

“You’re gonna make me do a press conference. Aren’t you.”

“Tomorrow morning, 9am,” Pepper chirps, cheerful in the face of Tony’s agony, and Tony groans again.

“A press conference?” Harley pipes up, distracted from his debate with Peter about whether or not he looks similar enough to Tony to be mistaken for his secret lovechild. “Can I come?”

……………………….

The Press Conference goes ahead the next morning, and… it doesn’t go _badly?_ But it sure doesn’t go the way anyone expected it would.

Tony gets up in front of the mic (and Harley bounces cheerfully up beside him as though he wasn’t told to stay on the sidelines) and Tony reads Pepper’s cue cards (well. Loosely follows them, at least, which is the best that can be expected, really), and he tells everyone that Harley is _not_ Tony’s child, secret or illegitimate or otherwise, and explains that they met years ago during the Mandarin debacle and that Tony stayed in touch with the family ever since, and that the kid is now being sponsored to attend school in New York, and it’s all very nice and calm and bland, and then the floor opens up to questions.

“So – just to confirm; Harley is _not_ your biological child,” Reporter Number One asks, looking like she very much doubts what she’s just been told.

“Psh,” Harley answers before Tony can. “He _wishes_ he could have a biological kid as awesome as me.”

Tony rolls his eyes.

“It’s not even shocking that you all think he’s mine, with that attitude,” he says, and more than a few reporters chuckle.

“Don’t shy away from the truth, Tony,” Harley continues, a glint in his eye and a barely suppressed grin on his lips as he goes, casually, for the kill. “It’s time we told them all anyway. I’m not his biological son, sure. But I am his _adopted_ son.”

There’s silence for a split second before the room erupts into chaos.

Tony outright _splutters,_ caught between surprise, outrage, and denial, and Harley grins with delighted amusement as the cameras all start going off in their faces and the reporters all start shouting questions at once.

“You are _not,”_ Tony says, once he manages to find his words, raising his voice over the babble of questions.

“Well I could be,” Harley says, unrepentant. “If you would just man up and make it official.”

“I’m pretty sure that your _mother,_ who is _alive and well,_ by the way, would be just a bit offended by you trying to get yourself adopted,” Tony says, and Harley waves a hand. Both of them pay zero attention to the reporters who one by one fall silent as they realise that by continuing to shout questions, they’re missing the by-play that’s happening on the podium.

“No she wouldn’t,” Harley disagrees. “Mom is mom – I’m not trying to replace her, and she knows that. But my father figure spot’s been vacant for years, and you’re by far the best fit for it, so it’s a done deal.”

“I have signed exactly no paperwork agreeing to this,” Tony says. “There is nothing done about this deal.”

“Paperwork schmaperwork,” Harley dismisses. “We know what’s in our hearts, and _that’s_ what matters. And what we _feel_ is that we’re _family._ You don’t need to say anything, I know it’s true. You even called Rhodes my _Uncle_ Rhodey yesterday.”

Shit. Tony did do that, didn’t he?

“You are so obnoxious,” he says, instead of trying to formulate a denial or explanation for the _Uncle Rhodey_ thing. “I don’t see why anyone would think we’re related; I was never this obnoxious as a child.”

Harley reaches immediately for his pocket.

“I will give ten bucks,” he says to the crowd of reporters, pulling out his wallet and retrieving a bunch of crumpled ones, “to anyone who can find me footage of Tony being obnoxious as a child.”

“Put that away,” Tony snaps, snatching the cash out of the kid’s hand.

“Hey!” Harley protests immediately. “That’s mine!”

“Yeah, given to you by _whom,_ precisely?” Tony snarks back, tucking the bills into his own jacket pocket. “The billionaire giveth and the billionaire taketh away. Isn’t that how allowances work? You behave like a little shit and you lose your allowance for like a day or whatever?”

“Ugh, you’re such a dad,” Harley grumps. “I wasn’t even being a shit.”

“You absolutely were,” Tony disagrees immediately. “Telling the press to find compromising footage of me counts as being a little shit. This whole circus, actually, is you being a little shit.”

“I can’t believe you just called your own adopted son a little shit,” Harley says, placing a hand dramatically over his heart. “You know, in some circles, that would be considered bad parenting.”

“Then it’s fortunate I’m not a parent,” Tony replies.

“Psh, yeah, sure,” Harley scoffs, and then turns back to the mass of reporters, who are being surprisingly well behaved. Probably because no questions they could ask could possibly be more entertaining than the chaos that Harley’s creating all on his own. Tony really needs to get him off the stage before he wreaks any more havoc. Pepper’s gonna kill them both for this.

“Anyway,” Harley tells the reporters, before Tony can bundle him off-stage. “Me and my brother are very happy with our new dad.” 

“It’s _my brother and I,”_ Tony corrects automatically, and then frowns. “And what brother? You don’t have a brother.”

“Sure I do,” Harley replies, and then sends a glance sideways at Tony that’s meant to look innocent but which actually just looks sly. “Don’t tell me you and Peter haven’t worked out yet that you’re just as much a father-son set as you and I are. You’re our dad. That makes him and me brothers.”

“I don’t – what? No it doesn’t! And don’t you bring Peter into this!”

“Too late,” Harley chirps, unrepentant.

“He’s not even here to defend himself,” Tony says. Pepper had timed the conference for 9am because Harley had a free period first up, but Peter’s in History right now, and doesn’t have the faintest clue that Harley has just thrown him under the bus like this.

“No, but we talked about this,” Harley shrugs.

“You two _talked about this?”_ Tony echoes, and his eyebrows are somewhere up near his hairline.

“Well, I mean – it was _implied,”_ Harley clarifies, and oh ok. So that means that Harley has just decided on Peter’s behalf, and that no, no one has actually talked about this.

“Does Peter _know_ that my supposed adoption of him was ‘implied’ when you spoke to him?” Tony asks, and Harley grins.

“He will once he sees this conference,” the kid says, and Tony casts his eyes skyward in exasperation.

“Having children is _exhausting,”_ he says, to no one in particular, but all the microphones in the room pick it up anyway.

Harley points at him enthusiastically and looks out over the crowd of reporters.

“You all heard that, right?” he crows, expression bright with delighted amusement. “Tell me you all heard that.”

“Yes ok _thank you,_ that’s quite enough from you,” Tony says, clapping one hand over Harley’s mouth and using his other hand to turn Harley away from the podium. “Harley has school now so thank you for your time no more questions,” he adds, throwing the words in the vague direction of the media while he physically hustles Harley off stage.

He can feel the kid’s laughter against his palm, but he keeps his hand firmly in place, not slowing until he’s got the little troublemaker safely out of the media room and away from the rush of questions directed at them from the (highly amused) journalists.

………………………………….

“I thought you hated press conferences,” Harley says once Tony lets him go, bouncing along at the billionaire’s side like he’s an innocent little puppy who didn’t just wreak absolute chaos that will haunt Tony for weeks to come. “How come? That was _fun.”_

“Of course he thinks that,” Tony mutters under his breath. “Pepper’s gonna kill us both and the media hasn’t had so much fun at my expense since I stopped weapons manufacturing, but sure, _fun,_ ok.”

…………………………………………………….

Tony herds Harley into the car and has Happy drop the kid at school directly, because honestly, Tony doesn’t trust the small hooligan to make it there without incident if he’s allowed to go by himself, and it’s only minutes after they’ve delivered the little troublemaker to the front doors that Tony’s phone rings.

“If you hurt my kid like his first father did, I will skin you alive, do you understand me?” Mandy says as soon as he answers, and she sounds her usual brisk self, but with an undercurrent of pure steel and unbridled threat.

“Like his _first_ father did – are you telling me you’re on board with this pseudo-adopting business?” Tony asks.

“Tony, you’ve been dadding my kid from a distance for years. At this point the paperwork is just a formality.” 

“Has everyone except me decided that I’m this kid’s new dad?” Tony asks, and it’s meant to be rhetorical – he’s asking the universe, he’s not actually asking because he wants an answer – but Happy and Mandy both say “Yes,” in unison, and Tony sends a betrayed expression at his favourite driver.

“Look after him, or I’ll make Aldritch Killian seem like a baby salamander, do I make myself clear?” Mandy continues, and Tony has no doubt that she’s entirely capable of doing exactly what she says.

“It’s times like these that I realise how similar you and Pepper are,” Tony says.

Mandy’s silence is loud and pointed.

“Yes, yes, alright; loud and clear, if I hurt your kid you’ll flay me and turn me into a rug for your charming new craft room, I get it.”

“I think we can safely say _our_ kid, at this point,” she says, and hangs up before Tony can formulate a response. Which is kind of convenient, because Tony’s so surprised by what she’s just said that he doesn’t actually _have_ a response to give.

…………………………………………………..

Pepper’s the next one to render Tony speechless with surprise.

“Really, this is my own fault,” she opens with, when Tony finally returns her four missed calls. They’d come in mere seconds after the disaster of a press conference, one after another in quick succession, but Tony was a bit busy wrangling a physical embodiment of chaos into a car and off to school. 

“I should have known letting you and Harley attend a press conference together could end in nothing other than off-script madness,” Pepper continues. “If nothing else, though, it was amusing to see _you_ being the one on the back-foot for once.”

“Hey, _I_ followed the cards,” Tony protests immediately. And then adds, “…Loosely.”

Pepper snorts a delicate laugh at the concession.

“Well, at least he’s called you on the whole pseudo-father thing,” she says on a sigh. “It’s about time.”

…What?

Tony makes a sound that doesn’t fully convey his “????” emotion, but goes… some way to doing so.

“Oh come on, Tony, the only way you could be more of a father to that kid is if you _actually_ signed adoption papers,” Pepper says. “You’re exactly the same with Peter.”

Tony… doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s… not. Is he?

Pepper laughs at his startled silence, and hangs up.

……………………………………………………

Rhodey doesn’t speak to Tony in person, but he does send an SMS.

“Nice conference. You should let Harley take point on all press releases from now on. Btw, Uncles Day is June 26th this year. I want a mug that says ‘Best Uncle’ and I want it in War Machine colours.”

Tony looks at the text, spends a moment blinking at it in bemusement, and then puts his phone face-down on the counter and resolves to just ignore it.

(Though, he figures. This one is maybe on him. He _was_ the first one to use the term ‘Uncle Rhodey,’ and given that Harley and Rhodes have both pounced on it with glee, it looks like that’s a term that’s here to stay now.)

……………………………………………………

Peter is the fourth one to render Tony speechless, and honestly, he’s not sure how much more of this he can take. 

Pete responds to the whole situation with equal amounts of awkwardness and a kind of… shy acceptance, which, honestly? Tony did not remotely see coming.

The awkwardness – _that_ Tony isn’t surprised by. Kid’s as awkward as a newborn colt.

But the shy agreement? Yeah, that comes well out of left field.

“So, uh, Harley told me about the press conference,” is how Peter broaches the topic that afternoon, after Tony’s had most of the day to ponder (and try not to freak out about) the weirdness of everyone in his life deciding that he fits not only Harley’s, but apparently also _Peter’s_ vacant dad-role.

The country-bumpkin-chaos-maker in question is in the kitchen raiding the fridge, and Pete’s taken advantage of his brief absence to raise the topic with Tony in relative privacy.

“And, um. I mean…” Peter continues, and trails off.

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Tony says, because he thinks he knows what Peter’s trying to say, and Tony’s gonna let him off the hook before the kid works himself into a tizzy. “The little hellion also known as Harley caught me off guard, or I would have made him stop talking sooner. Pepper won’t let me live this down for _years_ , probably, no matter how… weirdly on board with the whole thing she is. But you can ignore it. You don’t have to be party to Harley’s madness, and don’t let him convince you otherwise.”

“No, of course,” Peter says quickly, looking down, and it sounds like he’s backtracking, somehow, which doesn’t make sense, given Tony’s understanding of this conversation. “I mean – if you don’t want, then obviously, uh, yeah.”

…Huh?

“If… I don’t want?” Tony asks, eyebrow raised and confusion in his voice.

“Yeah, obviously,” Peter says, not making eye contact. “I just meant that, uh. So far as brothers go, Harley isn’t _terrible,_ and, you know, he’s been dad-less for about as long as I have been, so… But no, obviously, so uh… never mind.”

“Hold up,” Tony says, holding a hand up to stall the kid as he goes to leave, because surely he can’t be interpreting Peter’s half-formed sentences correctly. But he’s gotta check. “Are you saying that you would – what, be ok with me… unofficially… adopting you?”

Peter glances up at him, hesitant and awkward, and then away again.

“I’m saying… that I wouldn’t… mind?” he says, and while it’s phrased as more of a question than a statement, it still leaves Tony feeling poleaxed.

“Oh. Right,” he says, and then… doesn’t know what to say next.

He doesn’t end up having to say anything.

_“Yes!”_ Harley hollers, leaping into the room from where he’s apparently been loitering by the door like a creeper. The kid bounces up to Peter with a bright, wild grin on his face and slings an enthusiastic arm around his shoulders. “I’ve _always_ wanted a brother!”

Peter laughs a little at Harley’s exuberance, but the kid sounds kind of nervous and uncertain and he sends an unsure glance in Tony’s direction. And – well. That won’t do. Tony might not have the faintest idea of what’s just happened here, but he knows he doesn’t like seeing Peter look so uncertain and vulnerable.

“Did I just get adopted?” Tony asks, because he’s not sure, but he thinks that’s what happened.

“Psh, pay attention – we adopted you a while ago,” Harley says.

“You don’t… mind, do you?” Peter asks, and then hurries on, speaking so fast that his words almost trip over each other. “It’s just – I hadn’t even thought of it that way, but Harley was talking about it and I realised that you sorta have been kind of dad-like, with the advice and all your help and even that time you grounded me, and I mean I have more experience with uncles than with dads but you’re kinda different to how Uncle Ben was, and you’re more like how Mr Leeds is with Ned, only with me, and then with what Harley said today it kinda just got me thinking, and – ”

“Kid,” Tony interrupts, before Peter can run out of breath and pass out. “I don’t mind.”

And he doesn’t. Which is… weird. And definitely something he’s going to freak out about. But later, not now.

“Oh,” Peter says, and then grins a bright, relieved, blinding grin that almost makes the day of confusion and emotional weirdness worth it. “Cool.”

The kid’s expression makes something warm bloom in Tony’s chest, and his lips twitch upwards at the corners, but he makes an effort to keep the expression off his face. Don’t want to make out like this is a big deal or anything, after all. It would make Peter uncomfortable, if he did. It’s 100% because of that, and not even a little bit because Tony doesn’t know what to do with the warmth in his chest. Absolutely.

Unfortunately, Harley – the eagle-eyed little pest – sees Tony’s rapidly-quashed expression.

“FRIDAY is there an Epipen anywhere around?” the kid asks, stepping forward and peering closely at Tony. “I think Tony’s having an allergic reaction to his feelings, should – should we call an ambulance?”

Tony places his hand against the side of Harley’s face and shoves, just hard enough that the kid stumbles sideways with a giggle.

“Cool, so now that we’re one big happy science-family,” Harley says once he’s recovered his balance, still grinning and bouncing a little on the spot, too much energy in his tiny little hillbilly body to stay still, apparently. “When do we get to start doing all that father-son shit? Like basketball games and crap. Wait, you guys are gonna support some crappy team like the Buffalos, aren’t you? Ugh, whatever, we can go next time the Titans are playing them, and I’ll cheer and you two can sob dramatically while my team _crush_ yours.”

“Uhhh, what?” Peter asks, abruptly offended. “In what universe do you live in that you think the _Titans_ would beat the _Buffalos?_ Tony, back me up here.”

“Uh, I’m a bit busy being dismayed at the discovery that my brand new sons are _jocks,_ apparently; what is this, I didn’t sign up for this, you two are meant to be _science_ prodigies, not baseball fans,” Tony says, and Harley snorts.

“… _Basket_ ball,” Peter says, sending Tony a baffled expression that clearly says he’s wondering whether Tony’s hit his head recently. “Titans and Buffalos are basketball teams. Not baseball.”

Tony shrugs.

“Same difference,” he says carelessly, and Peter’s mouth drops open with dismayed shock.

“Th—They’re not the _same!”_ he says. “No, you _have_ to know this, come on – you, you go to their games all the time!”

“Which games? The baseball or the basketball?” Tony asks, and he absolutely 100% knows the difference between the two sports, but watching Pete get all riled up about this is way more fun than admitting that.

“Both!” Peter yelps. “You go to both! All the time! You see the Mets play every home game and you’re always sitting courtside for the Buffalo games! _Courtside!”_

“Ewww, the Mets?” Harley echoes with a grimace. “FRIDAY, help – I’ve been adopted into a family devoid of sporting taste. I want a refund.”

“It could be worse,” FRIDAY says, cheerful. “They could support the _Yankees.”_

Harley and Peter grimace in tandem.

“You’re right, that would be worse,” Harley says.

“I just want to put it on record that I don’t actually support anyone,” Tony says. “Maybe I should pick a team. FRI, tell me more about these _Yankees_.”

“ _No_ ,” Harley says, emphatic, as Peter almost wails, “But the Mets! You go to the Mets! _All the time!”_

“Pepper’s the Mets supporter, she’s the one who buys the tickets,” Tony says with a shrug. “I just go cause it’s a good networking opportunity.”

Peter moans in denial while Harley cackles in amusement.

“I can’t believe we’re stuck with a dad who doesn’t like sports,” he says, and gets out his phone as Peter launches into an impassioned rant about the virtues of the Mets and why Tony is _not_ allowed to start supporting the Yankees.

_Our dad has ZERO taste in sports,_ is how he captions the photo (Tony, looking indulgent and amused as he watches Peter, who’s in the middle of speaking and has both hands raised in a dramatic hand gesture). The hashtags are _TheMetsSuckButTheYankeesAreWorse_ and _NewYorkTeamsAreWeakAnyway_ and _TitansOverBuffalos4ever._

_I went to college with this nerd, I’m fully aware of how useless he is at sports,_ Rhodey replies on the post, a few moments later.

_Wanna be the cool uncle and take us to games while The Nerd stays at home and makes things explode?_ Harley replies.

_As if you’d pick basketball over making things explode, don’t lie to us,_ Sophie responds before Rhodey can.

_Hm, fair,_ Harley says. _Sorry Uncle Rhodey, you’re still the only real jock in this family._

……………………………………………………….

The debate about the Mets versus the Yankees eventually turns into a debate about basketball versus baseball, which becomes a debate about baseball versus all other sports, which turns into a debate about New York versus the other states, which carries them through to dinner time.

By the time the pizzas arrive, the three-way debate has somehow become an argument about which Star Wars film is the best one to introduce a new fan to (“Because all roads lead to Star Wars, that’s how,” is Peter’s answer when Tony wonders aloud how they got from Mets vs Yankees to Star Wars), and eventually it’s decided that they need to watch the films again in order to settle the argument.

The three of them sit on the floor and eat their pizza, pressed in close together so they can fight each other for the best slices. They let FRIDAY (the only neutral party) pick which one of the many Star Wars films they should watch, and – look. It’s been a very long day, is Harley’s excuse for what happens. It’s been a long day, filled with press conferences and emotions and school and emotions and pizza, and Star Wars has always been Harley’s comfort film, and it’s warm in here, and Tony’s a very comfortable guy to lean on, so that’s his excuse. 

He doesn’t know what Peter and Tony’s excuses are, but he knows what his is, and he’s sticking to it.

…………………………………………………………..

It’s late, when Pepper gets home. She’s not sure what the time is, exactly, but it’s sometime after 11.30. One of the hassles of running an international company is that sometimes you have to run international meetings, and 9 am in some countries is 9 _pm_ in America.

She’s already asked FRIDAY where Tony and the boys are, and been directed to the Penthouse, but when she gets up there, it’s all suspiciously quiet.

There’s no enthusiastic bickering or amused cackling, no loud music that’s usually synonymous with science being done ( _not_ that Pepper would approve of science happening in the Penthouse; that’s why they have _labs)_ and no casual chatter coming from the kitchen. There’s a faint sound coming from the living room, though, so she follows that to its source, and --- stops in the doorway.

The faint sound was the TV, which is still playing Star Wars (Pepper doesn’t know which one; they’re all the same to her), even though no one’s watching it anymore. FRIDAY’s clearly turned the volume down, which Pepper makes a mental note to praise her for later.

Because the three occupants of the room are all fast asleep.

There’s pizza boxes scattered about on the carpet, and three bodies slumped in a pile nearby, all of them relaxed and boneless as their chests gently rise and fall with their soft, sleep-deep breathing.

Tony’s on his stomach, hands buried underneath the couch cushion on the floor and face mashed into the soft fabric, his hair a wild curly mess. Peter’s using the curve of Tony’s spine as a pillow, and his face is slack with sleep and his mouth is slightly open as he snores quietly. Harley looks the least comfortable out of the three of them; Pepper thinks he must have started out using Tony’s ankles as a pillow, but has since moved around in his sleep enough that his shoulders are supported by Tony’s ankles, but his head is hanging off the edge in a way that will probably give him a hell of a crick in the neck.

The blues and reds and greens from the unwatched TV throw light patterns out over the room and its three sleeping occupants, and Pepper can’t help it.

@CEOPotts usually only shares snippets of official press releases, or announcements about upcoming product releases. It’s not often that she shares anything remotely personal. But today, she shares a photo of three sleeping scientists with the caption _A tired dad and his kids_.

It goes viral within the hour.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: the opinions of the characters regarding certain sports teams are not necessarily those of the author. The author, in fact, knows nothing of US sports teams and had to research all of their names. (Side note: did y'all know Tennessee doesn't even have a pro-league baseball team? Sucks to be a baseball fan in Tennessee, apparently). 
> 
> I figured we could all use a bit of IronDad in these trying times. Hope you're all staying safe and well! Xxx


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